Over the last three decades the Telluride film festival has become known as a maverick event, and organisers moved to consolidate its status yesterday with the announcement of its latest lineup.

The four-day event kicks off today with the world premiere of Fur, Stephen Shainberg's highly anticipated account of the life of celebrated photographer Diane Arbus, played by Nicole Kidman in what is expected to be an award-worthy performance.

What makes the announcement unusual - not to mention highly irritating in the eyes of major festival and studio executives - is that Fur's official world premiere is scheduled to grace the inaugural Rome film festival in October.

However Telluride organisers have never been ones to stand on ceremony and don't label their films as premieres. The result is that a film like Fur will screen in Colorado some six weeks before its Italian launch.

As far as the studios are concerned, Telluride's role as a sneak preview festival where attendees can see major films months ahead of their release dates scuppers the best laid plans of major autumn festivals such as Venice and Toronto. Renowned festivals like these rely upon premieres to attract a large crowd of critics and use the word of mouth to begin marketing their films.

Among several other so-called premieres are Kevin Macdonald's Idi Amin drama, The Last King Of Scotland, starring Forrest Whitaker and James McAvoy (set to receive its official world premiere at the Toronto festival later this month) and Infamous, Doug McGrath's account of Truman Capote that is almost identical in plot to last year's Capote and screened at Berlin.

Penelope Cruz will receive a career award during the festival, which runs between September 1 and 4.